[209] "The speech of the night was that of King Hudson. In a most masterly manner he swept away the rubbish, of the Whig Chancellor."—Special Correspondent of Dublin Freeman.
[210] "How is it that a war expenditure never alarms our practical public, while half the amount employed among ourselves produces something like a panic? We spent millions on the Affghanistan war, and had a whole army destroyed, with no one result whatever; there was scarcely a remark made about it, and the generals who commanded the expedition that led to defeat and disgrace got peerages and pensions.... We will put it to any one whether, if Lord George Bentinck had, as a general (and had he continued in the army he might have been one), caused the positive loss for ever of sixteen millions to this country, in a campaign at the other end of the world, he would have been visited with such a torrent of ridicule as that poured upon him on account of his plan for laying out that sum at home, with an absolute certainty of its return? No; his destruction of that amount of capital would have been rewarded with a peerage and a pension for three lives."—Illustrated London News, May 8th, 1847.
[211] The majority was at first announced to be 204, but it was afterwards found to be 214.
[212] The following were the votes of the Irish members on the occasion:
| FOR THE BILL. | AGAINST THE BILL. |
|---|---|
| Colonel Acton, Sir H.W. Barron, T. Bateson, Viscount Bernard, M.J. Blake, Sir A.B. Brooke, Colonel Bruen, W.M. Bunbury, P.J. Butler, Lord J.L. Chichester, Hon. H.A. Cole, Colonel Conolly, E.A. Fitzgerald, H. Grattan, W.H. Gregory, E. Grogan, J.H. Hamilton, G.A. Hamilton, Lord E. Hill, J. Kelly, D.S. Kerr, P. Kirk, Hon. C. Lawless, A. Lefroy, C.P. Leslie, Major M'Namara, A. M'Carthy, T.B. Martin, Viscount Newry, Sir D. Norreys, Viscount Northland, C. O'Brien, W.S. O'Brien, D. O'Connell, jun. John O'Connell, E. Smithwick, E. Taylor, H.M. Tuite, Sir W. Verner. | Viscount Acheson, R.M. Bellow, R.D. Browne, Hon. R.S. Carew, Viscount Castlereagh, Hon. C.C. Cavendish, B. Chapman, M.E. Corbally, Hon. H.T. Corry, Hon. T. Dawson, Sir T. Esmonde. F. French, Sir B. Howard, J. O'Brien, M.J. O'Connell, O'Connor Don, J. Power, Colonel Rawdon, D.R. Ross, Right Hon. F. Shaw, Right Hon. E.L. Sheil, J.P. Somers, Sir W.M. Somerville, W.V. Stuart, W.H. Watson, H. White, T. Wyse. |
CHAPTER XII.
State of the Country during the Winter of 1847--State of Clare--Capt. Wynne's Letter--Patience of the suffering people--Ennis without food. The North--Belfast: great distress in it--Letter to the Northern Whig. Cork: rush of country people to it--Soup--Society of Friends--The sliding coffin--Deaths in the streets--One hundred bodies buried together!--More than one death every hour in the Workhouse. Limerick: Experience of a Priest of St. John's. Dublin: Dysentery more fatal than cholera--Meetings--"General Central Relief Committee for all Ireland"--Committee of the Society of Friends--The British Association for the Relief of Extreme Distress in Ireland and Scotland. The Government--Famine not a money question--so the Government pretended--Activity of other countries in procuring food--Attack on Divine Providence--Wm. Bennett's opinion. Money wages not to be had from farmers. Was it a money or food question?--The navigation laws--Freights doubled--The Prime Minister's exposition--Free Trade in theory--protection in practice--The Treasury says it cannot find meal. President Folk's message to Congress--America burthened with surplus corn--could supply the world--Was it a money question or a food question? Living on field roots--Churchyards enlarged--Three coffins on a donkey cart. Roscommon--no coffins--600 people in typhus fever in one Workhouse!--Heroic virtue--The Rosary. Sligo--Forty bodies waiting for inquests!--Owen Mulrooney--eating asses' flesh. Mayo--Meeting of the County--Mr. Garvey's statement. Mr. Tuke's experiences--Inquests given up--W.G.'s letters on Mayo--Effect of Famine on the relations of landlord and tenant--Extermination of the smaller tenantry--Evictions--Opinion of an eyewitness--A mother takes leave of her children--Ass and horse flesh--something more dreadful! (Note). The weather--its effects. Count Strezelecki. Mr. Egan's account of Westport--Anointing the people in the streets! The Society of Friends--Accounts given by their agents. Patience of tho people--Newspaper accounts not exaggerated. Donegal--Dunfanaghy--Glenties--Resident proprietors good and charitable. Skull--From Cape Clear to Skull--The Capers--Graveyard of Skull--Ballydehob--The hinged coffin--Famine hardens the heart. Rev. Traill Hall--Captain Caffin's narrative--Soup-kitchens--Officials concealing the state of the people--Provision for burying the dead--The boat's crew at a funeral. State of Dingle. Father Mathew's evidence. Bantry--Inquests--Catherine Sheehan--Richard Finn--Labours of the Priests--Giving a dinner away--Fearful number of deaths--Verdict of "Wilful murder" against Lord John Russell--The Workhouse at Bantry--Estimated deaths--The hinged coffin--Shafto Adair's idea of the Famine.
The year 1846 closed in gloom. It left the Irish people sinking in thousands into their graves, under the influence of a famine as general as it was intense, and which trampled down every barrier set up to stay its desolating progress. But the worst had not yet come. It was in 1847 that the highest point of misery and death had been reached. Skibbereen, to be sure, ceased to attract so much attention as it had been previously doing, but the people of that devoted town had received much relief; besides, there were now fewer mouths to fill there, so many were closed in death, at the Windmill-hill, in the Workhouse grounds, and in the churchyard of Abbeystrowry. Instead of one, Ireland had now many Skibbereens. In short, the greater part of it might be regarded as one vast Skibbereen. In the Autumn of 1846, the famine, which all saw advancing, seized upon certain districts of the South and West; but as ulcers, which first appear in isolated spots upon the body, enlarge until, touching each other, they become confluent, so had the famine, limited in its earlier stages to certain localities, now spread itself over the entire country. Hence, it is not in any new forms of suffering amongst the famine-stricken people that its increasing horrors are to be looked for: it is in its universality, and in the deadly effects of a new scourge—fever—which was not only manifesting itself throughout the land at this time, but had already risen to an alarming height—a thing not to be wondered at, because it is the certain offspring, as well as the powerful auxiliary, of famine.
In the fall of 1846, several parts of Clare were in a very wretched condition; but, at the opening of the new year, the most prosperous localities in that county had been sucked into the great famine vortex. Writing at this period from Ennis, the chief town, Captain Wynne says: "The number of those who, from age or exhaustion and infirmity, are unable to labour, is becoming most alarming; to those the public works are of no use; they are, no doubt, fit subjects for private charity and the exertions of relief committees, but it is vain to look to these sources for relief at all commensurate with the magnitude of the demand. Deaths are occurring from Famine, and there can be no doubt that the Famine advances upon us with giant strides." Several of the officials who had written to Sir Randolph Routh and others, from different parts of the country, blamed the people for their listlessness, their idleness, and the little interest they seemed to take in cropping their land, in order to secure a future supply of food. Addressing himself to this point, Captain Wynne says: "It is in vain to direct their [the people's] attention to the prosecution of those agricultural operations which can alone place any limit to their present deplorable condition. Agricultural labour holds out a distant prospect of reward—their present necessities require immediate relief. Such is their state of alarm and despair at the prospect before them, that they cannot be induced to look beyond to-morrow; thousands never expect to see the harvest. I must say the majority exhibit a great deal of patience, meekness, and submission." Again, in the same letter: "The effects of the Famine are discernible everywhere: not a domestic animal to be seen—pigs and poultry have quite disappeared. The dogs have also vanished, except here and there the ghost of one, buried in the skeleton of one of those victims of cruelty and barbarity, which have been so numerous here within the last two months—I allude to the horses and donkeys that were shot. It is an alarming fact that, this day, in the town of Ennis, there was not a stone of breadstuff of any description to be had on any terms, nor a loaf of bread."[213]